School health officials reported frustration with the local hospital regarding the lack of resources available to them when it came to the subject of teenage sex. Because the local hospital controlled the school's health funds, the refusal to allow the school to distribute prescription birth control or contraceptive devices to students without parental consent prompted the staff to leave.
Additionally, the state of Massachusetts had slashed its budget for reproductive health outreach, reducing eight full-time workers to only one , and cut back considerably on sex education in schools. Another issue the "pact" raised was the fact that under Massachusetts law, it is illegal to have intercourse with anyone aged 15 and under, even if it is consensual. This would be up to the parents' discretion, and whether they felt they wanted to press charges or not.
The partners could also be ordered to pay child support to the teenage mothers, even if they too were only approximately Reportedly, no charges were filed against the expecting fathers. One reaction to the rapid increase in teenage mothers looked to Gloucester's socio-economic state, rather than the world of the high school girls.
Gloucester had once been a booming fishing town, but the economy was sagging, and the emerging generations had fewer prospects in the way of careers. A reporter from Time , Kathleen Kingsbury, stated that the girls who had joined in on the alleged pact sought pregnancy as a kind of purpose:.
Being a mother became something they can do, gave them an identity […] They didn't really have an alternative. Nobody offered them a better life.
In response to the unprecedented number of teen pregnancies, many parents blamed the media. At the time, Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney Spears's year-old little sister, had just given birth to her baby, and Bristol Palin was another unwed celebrity teen mother. Additionally, the film Juno depicted a pregnant high school student and was nominated for several Academy Awards. Concerned parents argued such instances glorified teenage pregnancy and that it was irresponsible to celebrate such behavior through mainstream media and films.
In and in the years that have followed, the alleged "members" who have spoken publicly have all denied the presence of a premeditated pact. The concept of the pact was more of a post-pregnancy decision to stay in school and stick together through the newfound challenge of being pregnant teens.
One of the young mothers, Kyla Brown, reacted to the news of the pact with surprise and anger. In a Marie Claire article, she states: "I was freakin' devastated, are you kidding me? Brown isn't the only mother from the Gloucester 18 with this kind of reaction. Christen Callahan, a fellow teen mother from the class, told Today : "You lose everything.
You lose being able to go out [ One resident said the story was like a black eye for Gloucester, telling Inside Edition, "Is this what we really want to be known for?
That said, the 18 girls at the same high school did get pregnant in the same year. Some blamed pop culture. The boyfriends, or simply just boys, involved in this pregnancy conspiracy were oddly silent throughout the whole ordeal. Of course, the media wasn't focused on them at the time, but it does beg to question how 18 girls happened to have 18 boyfriends who didn't think to use protection.
Hypothetically, let's say that there was some sort of pact. Were these boys just as disillusioned as the teenage girls were?
What could have been said to lure these boys in enough to agree to impregnate their girlfriends, if that's even what they were? To speak to the side of Kyla Brown, if there was no pact, then the coincidence that all 18 of these girls got pregnant in the same school year is nearly unfathomable.
It was speculated that some of the girls even turned to older men, in an attempt to solidify whatever status was at stake. Brianne Mackey, one of the girls who was a part of the 18, ended up marrying her high school boyfriend. Much like Brown, she denies there every being a pact and remains sad towards the fact that people will never truly listen or believe her. Mackey and her husband separated after their second child. As we've stated already, every girl involved in the pact has denied that one ever existed.
Lindsay Oliver, one of the original 18, got pregnant at 17 and has claimed that they're all just "unlucky" in an interview with Marie Claire. She was one of the girls who became pregnant by her boyfriend, who was 20 and three years older than her at the time. Many of the girls shied away from the idea of being in the news when the media strolled through Massachusetts as well, which adds an interesting layer to this pregnancy-pact onion that we may never get to the bottom of.
While Brienne Mackey did say that she has known girls can get pregnant for attention, even this doesn't necessarily make sense in conjunction with the fact that many girls wanted nothing to do with sitting in front of a camera or giving a quote. The idea of being peer-pressured to become pregnant seemed to be a foreign concept to the pregnant 18, which leaves incredibly unlucky circumstances, or, as Nurse Daly and Brian Orr originally insinuated, a serious need for sponsored birth control methods.
Even with increased education, it's still hard to grasp the fact that one school saw 18 positive pregnancy tests in one school year. To our knowledge, there have never been any hard and fast rules that were associated with the "pregnancy pact" Mainly because in all likelihood, there never was one, to begin with. What was really a back and forth between school staff members in an argument for better safe education and prevention was twisted into something that turned into a small-town scandal that suddenly the entire country was interested in.
Based on former principal Sullivan's report of a "pact" that all the girls had created, the only rule he could even come up with was that the girls were to be pregnant by their Junior year of high school. Intentionally getting pregnant because of an agreement is a sick ideology even for a high school student, and it's made even worse coming out of the mouth of a high school staff member.
Officials had officially rejected the existence of a pact simply because Sullivan could not remember when he'd heard about it or any details of it, and with no proof from other staff members to back it up, it was discredited. All Sullivan could manage to say was the guidelines were to "raise their babies together" according to a New York Times article written in If the pact really did exist, why was it so "hush hush" by the town and the girls themselves? When the media came in to try and spot an interview with them and gain some much-needed insight into how and why this all happened, many of the girls hid away and refused to talk.
The ones that did agree to interviews, however, denied the existence of the "pregnancy pact" to the fullest extent, even going as far as to add their own personal story just to prove they had not done this as some sort of agreement or commitment to each other. Some girls, like Brienne Mackey, even claimed that none of the 18 girls who were pregnant even knew each other or were friends in the slightest. This changes the dynamic between what the media has turned the pact into and what is known in reality, and in reality, we know this: The "pregnancy pact" may never have actually existed.
However, were the girls who refused to comment just shy, or did they know something more? The only one freely chatting was the principal, and even his knowledge of the whole ordeal is sketchy. This is the question to beat, isn't it? How did former principal of Gloucester High School, Dr.
Joseph Sullivan, know so much information about a pact between a group of year-old girls? When officials and the media asked him, his response was always the same. His memory of that specific detail, the one thing that had the chance to either prove or deny the existence of a pact, had eluded him.
He made claims that his memory was "foggy" on that particular detail. Meanwhile, he managed to come up with the story of one of the girls randomly going after a homeless man to be her suitor for a future baby, which in itself is outrageous, as well as the idea that these seven or eight original girls had banded together in the first place.
It would appear that his claims weren't just crazy to the girls who were pregnant, but also to town officials, who declared his story to be nothing but a sensationalized rumor that managed to make its way out of the school. This right is fundamental to human dignity, and it belongs to minors as well as adults. Legal rights do not depend on whether someone else thinks the pregnancy is a good idea.
The Gloucester case points to the need to strike a balance between identifying the problems that led to the difficult situation these young women and indeed, all pregnant teens find themselves in and respecting the life-changing decisions pregnant girls are forced to make.
We have to come to terms with the fact that some girls will decide to get pregnant, and some of those who become pregnant will want to continue the pregnancy and keep their babies. We cannot run from the complicated questions intentional teen pregnancies raise. Pregnant and parenting girls have as much of a right to complete their education as any other student. Support services provide a vital resource for girls who have made the decision to become mothers.
Research shows that quality school-based support programs for pregnant and parenting teens and their children go a long way toward supporting not only academic success, but future economic stability and well-being.
Rather than suggesting that these programs encourage teen pregnancy, we need to applaud this school's commitment to keeping all students on the path to graduation and advocate for increased support for pregnant and parenting students in schools across the country. A minor who is pregnant, deliberately or otherwise, cannot make her best choices without information and support.
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